Obviously, the most common theme among the readings is that of displaced persons, most notably the women and children who were largely left alone to essentially sort through the rubble of their lives that were obliterated during the war. But something that I found particular interesting were the words of a social worker with the International Refugee Organization(IRO) by the name of Vinita A. Lewis who worked in Germany in the years immediately following the Second World War. She insisted that the most important social problem of the time in Europe was that many individual children had lost their identities or a sense of identity in regards to their native land or place of origin. She claimed that it is a basic human right, one that all children are entitled to, that a displaced child have full knowledge of their background and who they are in terms of national origin. Such a view seems odd to me, especially since this social worker is essentially promoting nationalism to some degree, or at least national knowledge, in a time where nationalism had just recently sent the world through two of the bloodiest and most deadly wars that have ever befallen humanity. A main question that I would ask about the perspective of this woman in the article is “why would this woman essentially promote national feeling, which could lead to national pride and so on, in the wake of such a tragedy that was basically brought on by ultra-nationalist feeling?”
I’ll be completely honest in saying that the idea of nationalism is incredibly appealing. Its the same feeling of community and belonging that one gets when being a part of a sports team, or even just being a fan of a sports team. But it also produces the same fervent loyalty, as seen in most major conflicts, particularly World War One and Two. This is why it seems so strange to me that organizations, whether it be large or small, seem to leaning more towards nationalism in the article, as opposed to internationalism. You would think that after such a horrible conflict that everyone would be thinking, “right, well lets all get to know each other and be the best of friends so something like this will never happen again.” But on a small scale, a place taking care of displaced children in Switzerland essentially segregated the children along lines of ethnicity and national origin, missing the opportunity to allow them to form a more internationalist mindset, as opposed to a nationalist one. I mean that was essentially the purpose of the early predecessor to the European Union, back when it was just an organization to economically link Germany and France so tightly that they would never be able to fight each other again. In short, it seems that many of the people and organizations referenced in the article are thinking more along nationalist lines and thus creating a more divisive climate that is far more conducive to conflict and war, than one that is more focused on internationalism.
I also wondered “why would this [social worker] essentially promote national feeling.” It does seem ironic that an ideology perpetuated after the war was a cause of the war in the first place. I would answer your question by saying that she feels this way because people believed that children’s psychological rehabilitation depended on the cultivation of a firm national identity. The “best interests” of children became rooted in inherent national identity. However, I believe this opinion is flawed because many children were adopted by parents of a different nationality. They know nothing of the one in which they were born. As someone mentioned in class, there is an interesting battle between nature versus nurture in this argument. In my opinion, citizenship is not solely dependent on ethnicity/race/born nationality.
After our discussions in class on Tuesday it was interesting to discover that the class was almost entirely split on its views of nationalism vs patriotism. That is half of the class defined nationalism as more extremist compared to patriotism, while the other half believed the opposite is true. To help answer the question of why nationalism was being promoted in after a war over nationalism had just ended I like to think of nationalism as pride in ones heritage vs being any feelings directed towards a specific nation. For example in fear of persecution by Hitler many Jews during the war would drop parts of their identities of being Jewish. After the war however, many individuals wished to reclaim identities they forgot about or intentional hid during the war.
I believe that the social worker viewed nationalism as such an important concept because she herself most likely had a great affinity for her home nation and wanted other children to have that same affinity for their home nations. She did not view it as something that had caused the Second World War, but rather as something that gives people hope and a sense of belonging.
I like how you focused on nationalism. I agree that the controversy surrounding the topic of displaced people created a toxic political environment when European nations should have been focused on restoring harmony. The appeal of nationalism on a political level following a world war proves to leave the European governments blind to many of the social ramifications involved.
Venta Lewis’ opinion may be part of a less popular way of thinking at the time. Simply because of war and tragedy unite people doesn’t mean that all the people will believe the same things. There were probably multiple factions of thought surrounding what the best path for these children was, just as there would be now.
I agree that the idea of nationalism is appealing. Something about being able to strongly identify with a particular group of people and self identifying as being superior in someway should appeal to people. The unity makes people stronger because of their links to others. Nationalism can be used as a way to protect ones self or ones country, and I think that’s what happened in the aftermath of World War Two. The French didn’t want to accept German displaced persons because to benefit through the use of German displaced persons would mean that the German persons benefit as well. Each nation wanted to benefit more than the others, and even if it would benefit everyone if everyone was willing to help someone, nations were unwilling to put others before themselves if the nation was not going to benefit in someway.